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GUEST POST and EXCERPT and GIVEAWAY: Aqua Follies by Liv Rancourt

The Aqua Follies!

Hey, so, thanks for having me back as a guest on Because Two Men Are Better Than One! I very much appreciate connecting with your readers, especially today. I’m excited for everyone to finally have my new novel Aqua Follies out in the wild. Happy release day to me!

You may well be wondering, um, Aqua Follies? What exactly are the Aqua Follies? Right? Let’s talk about it. Basically, the Follies were a variety show on the water. In the days before triple-digit cable channels and Netflix & chill, people went out for their entertainment. From 1950 until about 1962, during the Seafair celebration, Seattleites could run down to Green Lake for the show.

Here’s a bit of background for those of you who aren’t from Seattle. Seafair is an annual August event that stretches out over a couple weeks. It’s still happening, so if you’re in town this summer, you can catch the Milk Carton Derby (boats made out of milk cartons race around the lake), maybe get hit on by a Seafair Pirate, or watch the grand finale, the hydroplane races on Lake Washington with the Blue Angels overhead.

It’s about as corny as can be, and pretty much unavoidable if you live here.

For the first Seafair in 1950, an open-air grandstand and stage was built at Green Lake, a lake in the northwest corner of the city with a 2.8 mile perimeter (that I once walked around in 35 minutes. Just sayin’…). The stadium sat a little over 5000 people, though it was built really fast and they had to take down about half of the seats in a rehab project in 1970.

In the ‘50s, though, Esther Williams was a huge star, who appeared in movies like “Bathing Beauty” and “Million Dollar Mermaid”. The Aqua Follies tapped into the public’s interest in water ballet, bringing a group of synchronized swimmers – the Aqua Dears – from Minneapolis to perform, along with their dancing sister-troupe, the Aqua Darlings.

The Aqua Follies also featured Olympic divers and a live band. Older friends who attended the Follies tell me that for kids, the divers were the most popular act. I’ve seen pictures of the original theater, and I’ve walked past that section of the lake uncountable times, and the water just doesn’t look deep enough for divers. They must have dug a trench or something, or else the bottom of the lake drops down past where I can see.

At any rate, the Dears and the Darlings were huge news when they got to town. The front page of the Seattle Times would feature them, with headlines like, “The Aqua Dears, Darlings Arrive for the Follies!” or “Sleepy Swimmers!”(which went along with a picture of six of the girls leaning on a bannister, grinning way too hard to be convincingly sleepy). The performers were housed in sorority houses at the nearby University of Washington, and tickets for the show ranged from $2 to $3.5 for a box seat.

All good things must come to an end, and after the Seattle Worlds Fair in 1962, the aqua theater fell out of regular use. The weather in Seattle is just too unpredictable, and frequent rain-outs made the shows cost-prohibitive to produce. In the ‘60s, promoters organized one-off events with performers like Sonny and Cher and even a rather notorious concert by Led Zeppelin, who opened for Three Dog Night. One of the final big shows was put on by the Grateful Dead in the summer of ’69. Soon after that, the stage and diving towers were dismantled.

Now the aqua theater is the home of the Green Lake Crew, and the only people in the remaining grandstands are joggers looking to add some stairs to their training. They say you should write what you know, and while I wasn’t old enough to see the Aqua Follies (or even that Led Zeppelin show, darn it) I do know the neighborhood, and it felt right to imagine the Aqua Dears’ coach, Russell, falling for the trumpet player in the band.

I hope you’ll check out Skip and Russell’s story. Keep reading for an excerpt, and please do enter the rafflecopter giveaway. My writing partner Irene Preston and I have a $25 gift card up for grabs, to celebrate Aqua Follies release!

Giveaway

Blurb

The 1950s. Postwar exuberance. Conformity. Rock and roll.

Homophobia.

Russell tells himself he’ll marry Susie because it’s the right thing to do. His summer job coaching her water ballet team will give him plenty of opportunity to give her a ring. But on the team’s trip to the annual Aqua Follies, the joyful glide of a trumpet player’s solo hits Russell like a torpedo, blowing apart his carefully constructed plans.

From the orchestra pit, Skip watches Poseidon’s younger brother stalk along the pool deck. It never hurts to smile at a man, because sometimes good things can come of it. Once the last note has been played, Skip gives it a shot.

The tenuous connection forged by a simple smile leads to events that dismantle both their lives. Has the damage been done, or can they pick up the pieces together?

About the Author

About Liv Rancourt
I write romance: m/f, m/m, and v/h, where the h is for human and the v is for vampire … or sometimes demon … I lean more towards funny than angst. When I’m not writing I take care of tiny premature babies or teenagers, depending on whether I’m at home or at work. My husband is a soul of patience, my dog’s cuteness is legendary, and we share the homestead with three ferrets. Who steal things. Because they’re brats.

Excerpt

When Skip had crossed the line into blatant flirting, Russell blushed like a girl. Skip liked the charge that came with pushing the pedal down, and—despite Lou’s opinions—he had enough self-preservation to know when to cut the gas.

Skip followed Russell to a shadowy area in the back of the parking lot, and once they were out of sight of anyone in the club, Russell brought out the flask and handed it over. Skip took a hit, the whiskey’s smoky burn warming his chest on the way down. “I got another question for you.”

Russell took the flask and raised an eyebrow.

“How come you don’t dance?” Skip was mainly curious, but the words carried more heat than he’d intended.

Russell snorted, crossing his arms over his chest in a way that made his biceps bulge. “I just don’t.”

“Maybe you need someone to teach you.” Lou would sure scold him for this one. “Maybe you just need the right person.”

Russell’s fists clenched, and for half a second, Skip thought he might haul off and punch him. Heck, he probably deserved it. Then Russell choked out a laugh. “The right person. Sure.”

“I mean…” Since he hadn’t been served a knuckle sandwich, Skip struck a pose, hip cocked, hands in the air like they were on a partner’s shoulders. “I can do the cha-cha.” He swung his hips, fighting a laugh at Russell’s perplexed expression. “Or the swing.” He mimed a four-step pattern, then swung his hips again for good measure. Russell appeared transfixed by the motion.

A shout of laughter distracted them. A group of people spilled out the nightclub’s door, a woman’s voice rising over the hubbub. “Where are we going again?”

Russell shifted in their direction, hands on his hips. “Annette?” he said softly.

“Wait. I want to go back in and hear the band.” To Skip’s ear, the woman wasn’t laughing nearly as hard as the bunch of guys she was with.

“Come on, sugar. It’s just out here,” one of the men said. Skip didn’t like the way he laughed.

“No.”

This time there was no mistaking the distress in her voice. Russell took off running, with Skip right behind. He detoured to the door of the club, where he ran into Ryker and Susie. They were laughing, his arm around her shoulder.

By the time they got to the other end of the parking lot, Russell was chest to chest with a drunken college boy, the kind with pale skin, a buzz cut, and a mean attitude. Skip looked around for anything he could use as a weapon if it came to a fight. There were two other fellows backing the one in front of Russell, and Annette huddled against a car, tears streaking her cheeks.

“So you’re going to take on all three of us? All by your lonesome?” The boy stuck his finger in Russell’s chest. Russell grabbed his wrist and leaned into him. The college boy was taller, but Russell was broader and bulkier.

“If I have to.”

Under different circumstances, the rock-solid certainty in Russell’s tone would have given Skip a hard-on. Saving that thought for later, he grabbed a thick branch lying between the cars.

“One against three.” Another of the college boys snickered.

Skip stepped forward, holding the branch loosely. “Looks like three against three to me.” Ryker followed his lead.

One of the arrogant fools came right up to Ryker. “Two and a half against three, I’d say.”

With a click, Ryker opened a switchblade. “Funny how this extends my reach.”

Swinging the branch, Skip took a step forward. The college boys all shifted back, even the one facing off with Russell. Skip might be slender and a little light in his boots, but anyone who grew up in Pioneer Square knew how to fight. He and Ryker moved into position on either side of Russell, and the college boys backed off.

“We were just playing anyway.” One of them laughed like it was all a joke.

“Didn’t sound like that to me,” Russell said. “I think you should apologize to my cousin.”

“Your cousin’s a slut.”

Skip wasn’t sure which one said it, but before anyone could respond, Russell took three big steps forward and put his fist into the middle guy’s belly. The boy dropped to his knees, and Russell stood over him. “Anyone else?”

The other two beat feet, which didn’t surprise Skip. These candy-ass college boys were all show and no go. Susie ran up to Annette, with Russell right behind her. “I’m going to get the car,” Skip said to Ryker. “We gotta cut out.”